


Agree to Where the Water Goes

by the_rck



Series: Not Ready to Swallow Oblivion [10]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Acting like an adult, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen, Psychotherapy, References to Child Abuse, References to Mind Control, Superpowers, underground organization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 15:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19948756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Because Ron Wilson is an actual Responsible Adult, there is a coda to "Intent on Its Angles."Ron preferred personal meetings to electronic communication or to anything written. He didn't always get that, not being as publicly visible as he was, but some things were better done face to face.Interviewing a potential therapist for a bunch of traumatized teenagers was definitely one of them.





	Agree to Where the Water Goes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Robert Bly's "When William Stafford Died."
> 
> Thanks to Gammarad for first reading.
> 
> If I'd had a firmer sense of Ron and of Wayside when I first wrote "Intent on Its Angles," this might have been the story's final chapter. Then again, that story's pretty focused on teenagers trying to cope with things they shouldn't have to. This story doesn't fit that.
> 
> This story is the bit that shows that Ron Wilson actually is an actual responsible adult. Nobody in "Intent on Its Angles" sees him as one, but I think he makes more sense as I developed him in "From the Chalice of Their Common Need." At the very least, I don't think Layla's parents would have left Will alone with Ron if there wasn't more to him than what we see in canon.
> 
> In other branches, Ron becomes Will's mentor. In this branch, the two of them are under a different and more direct scrutiny and have had less time for building trust. Ron's not that different, but he and Will only had 5-6 weeks in quasi-isolation after Homecoming rather than the 10 or so months that they need in other branches before Will starts working with Wayside.

Ron Wilson walked into the bar of an Applebee's about three towns over from where the Stronghold land was. He suspected that Will Stronghold had followed him this time, but he wasn't planning to say anything about it to his Wayside contacts.

Will wanting to verify what Ron was doing during his excursions was part of him accepting that the world was dangerous.

Ron was hoping that Will would notice a few things now that he was looking up from his grief. Ron might answer if Will asked; that would be Ron using his judgment in response to a time sensitive situation. Ron offering information would either mean cutting ties with Wayside or asking for permission first. 

If Ron asked, he wasn't going to get permission; Will's classmates were still too much an unknown, and Will was too likely to share what he found out. Ron didn't regret the kids escaping, but it did complicate many things that had looked simple. Ron had hoped for more time to talk his Wayside contacts around.

Ron had 'gone out for a beer' with the friend of a friend about once a week since Homecoming, just to keep channels open with Wayside. Isabel was local. She was a dental hygienist. Pedro just passed through occasionally. He drove a truck and wouldn't be at tonight's meeting. Ron had known Pedro before, but he'd first met Isabel after he and Will found out that Will could keep a plummeting schoolbus from hitting the ground.

Pedro had introduced Ron to Isabel. Ron and Pedro had a chain of plausible acquaintance through a couple of shared classes in automotive maintenance and some cross-training for bus driving and truck driving. Pedro's connection with Isabel was less likely to stand up to scrutiny, but it shouldn't need to. No one was vetting Ron's acquaintances that thoroughly, not yet.

Ron preferred personal meetings to electronic communication or to anything written. He didn't always get that, not being as publicly visible as he was, but some things were better done face to face. 

Interviewing a potential therapist for a bunch of traumatized teenagers was definitely one of them.

Dr Lydia Westrin shared a table with Isabel who waved Ron over as if they were old friends. 

Dr Westrin was a tall, solidly built black woman. She’d done her bachelors in Baton Rouge and her graduate work in Chicago. Her work experience had been entirely Wayside adjacent, much of it with families trying to conceal their children’s powers without teaching those children to be ashamed of having powers.

She stood and extended her hand for Ron to shake. "Call me Lydia," she said.

"Ron." He gave her a more genuine smile than he usually would when in public. He was letting go of the 'Bus Driver' part of his persona because it wasn't useful any more, but he couldn't let it be too sudden, not when someone might be watching. "Since you're in need of safe haven."

"Will that actually fly?" Dr Westrin asked.

Ron shrugged and ordered a beer. He still had to drive back, so he wasn't planning to have more than one. "The ones who might notice--" He shook his head. "You'll be suspiciously convenient, but they trust me that far." He seated himself at their table. "It's not as if they've got anyone at all available."

Ron knew that Lydia was younger than she looked. From the resume he'd seen, she wasn't quite thirty yet. He still had to watch her for several minutes to be sure what she was doing. Her clothing, her mannerisms, her vocal inflections and vocabulary, even the shape of her glasses and how she wore her hair, all of it added up to her coming across as at least two decades older than she actually was, and Ron was quite sure it was all deliberate.

He hadn't been happy when Wayside had sent him her resume because, on paper, she looked like a terrible match for his needs.

She'd be fine for Will who mostly needed by-the-book grief counseling, and she could probably help Ethan, Layla, and Zach. Magenta would be harder because Magenta already didn't trust therapists, but Magenta had a solid support network and actually wanted to defuse the things that were giving her nightmares.

Ron might have been able to handle helping all five of them because he knew kids and because not one of them saw him as a threat.

Ron couldn't touch the absolute mess that was Warren Peace, and he wasn't sure that Lydia could, either. He'd kind of hoped for someone who'd had a couple of decades of dealing with supers who'd gone off the deep end. He should have realized that people who were part of Wayside didn't go into that line of work.

Ron had been trying to make sure that Warren wasn’t completely isolated, but Ron was busy, and Warren usually looked straight through him when Ron visited.

Warren hadn’t even bothered to learn Ron’s name. Whatever had damaged Warren wasn’t recent. 

Ron had been slow about realizing that Warren’s problems weren’t just callousness and selfishness and power. He’d had to figure it out from fragments because the four escapees mostly didn’t talk about Warren. 

The things that had happened to them on Sky High were all indefinite pronouns and passive voice.

"Five kids?" Dr Westrin asked.

Ron fixed his eyes on his beer. "Six," he corrected. He took a deep breath. "It makes you more public than you have been, but... They're mostly good kids."

Warren wasn't, but Ron wasn't mentioning Warren by name until he had Dr Westrin somewhere secure.

She and Isabel both straightened slightly and looked wary.

Ron hesitated. "Not putting anything in writing about the sixth." He met Isabel's eyes then looked at Dr Westrin. "He's deeply fucked up, and I don't know if..." He shook his head. "They're all so damned young." He cleared his throat. "Meet him and then decide."

"Meeting him can't hurt," Dr Westrin said, but she still looked as if she was having second thoughts. Possibly third and fourth thoughts.

"The five are-- I can't say 'straightforward' or 'uncomplicated.'" Ron studied the two women. "As advertised." He nodded firmly. "They do need you. I think they're going to get lost in the shuffle otherwise. They'll be on the front lines with all of the shit hanging over them."

Dr Westrin looked away.

Ron considered what he'd do if she walked away. He knew he wasn't persuasive. That wasn't a skill he'd cultivated because he couldn't practice it without breaking his role. "There isn't anyone else."

Dr Westrin sighed. "There is, you know. I could recommend a dozen, and that's just people I know."

Ron considered the amount of alcohol he could put away between the women leaving and the bar closing at 11:00. Passing out in his car in the parking lot seemed like the right response to letting the kids down.

He hadn't realized that he felt that strongly about it.

Maybe Will would carry him home. That was a powerful argument for sobriety.

"He's right," Isabel said. "We've been looking for weeks. You're the only one who can relocate right now." She looked sideways at Ron. "I don't know about the sixth." Her expression said that she had guesses and really didn't like what she was coming up with. "What will you do with that one, Ron? If Lydia can't help, I mean."

Ron emptied his glass and wished he had something stronger. He considered risks and costs and ethical boundaries. "I'll give him to Gaia and her friends." He couldn't think of a better option. "He might survive that; he won't if we leave him where he is."

If Warren hadn't already been broken, sitting alone in that damned room for this long would have destroyed him. As it was, Ron didn't think it had done the boy any good.

Dr Westrin looked as if she understood the unspoken parts of what Ron had said. She made a small, unhappy noise and looked at Isabel. "Get me a Long Island iced tea?"

Isabel hesitated then nodded and slipped from her chair.

"I don't like this," Dr Westrin said as soon as Isabel was gone. "You're asking me to do something I probably can't."

"I know." Ron did. "I'll just feel a lot better if we try."

"If he needs meds, I can't do that."

"I know that, too." Ron was pretty sure they could talk a Wayside doctor into prescribing if Warren or the other kids needed it. That wouldn't require someone permanently on-site, and, for a while, there were going to be doctors in and out for the babies.

Jim Williams had said there'd be a pediatrician moving to the nearest town soon, two or three months down the road, one who knew how to treat kids with powers. Jim hadn't been thinking about the older kids, but they'd benefit.

Even Warren was still young enough to see a pediatrician. It would widen the circle of people who knew he existed, and Ron didn't want to bring someone else in on the secret. They'd probably have to tell Jim eventually.

Ron was just a little afraid that Jim would consider Warren in solitary as a fair trade for the harm Warren had done to Jim's baby girl. Ron didn't want to know that about Jim, and he didn't think Jim wanted to know it about himself.

****

Later, while Ron was driving Lydia back to the cabin, he said, "Warren's mother can alter memories and implant mental commands. We probably can't do much in the face of that, but nobody else is even going to try."

Ethan had told Will as soon as they had Warren locked in. Will, in turn, had warned Ron that the changes in security were about more than just the vastly increased number of people on the property. The other adults didn't realize that things hadn't always been that way.

Lydia whistled. "Way out of my league."

Ron managed something that might have been called a laugh. "There's a reason we've got extra security. Fortunately, you don't look anything like Sylvia Peace. Otherwise, we might not get in tonight." He realize how bad that sounded and added, "We should be safe enough. I think... I've only got pieces of it all, but I asked around. Warren's mother isn't big on making an effort or on cooperating with people; I don't think she's coming looking."

"And his father?" Lydia asked.

"Barron Battle?" Ron shook his head. He saw Lydia's wince out of the corner of his eye and realized that she hadn't recognized Warren's name or his mother's. "I'm hoping that he'll assume that Warren's dead. Not counting Warren, there are eight of us who have any clue that he's not. Isabel's only guessing, and none of the kids are going to say anything." He sighed. "They mostly think that pretending it's all not there will make it go away."

"I can work with that," Lydia said after a moment of silence. "For the other kids, I mean. Warren... That'll be harder."

"He's charming," Ron warned. "When he wants to be." He'd gotten that much from Jim and Debra after Homecoming when they were blaming each other for having let Layla go to the dance at all. 

Lydia took two deep breaths that Ron thought were meant to be centering. "I'm going to have to lie to him," she said. "We can't actually keep her away, and I'm going to have to promise him that he's safe."

Ron's hands clenched on the steering wheel. "Don't tell him we can protect him; tell him she's dead. If he ever finds out-- Well, he'll feel betrayed in either case. Might as well be a lie he might believe." He was pretty sure that that went against whatever code of ethics psychotherapists might follow, but he thought that even the smaller lie would.

And treating a kid who was imprisoned in a secret underground base was pretty damned unethical, too.

"The circumstances are... extraordinary," Lydia said. She sounded decidedly unenthusiastic. "I suppose we'll see worse."

"Don't look at that," Ron told her. "They're starfish on a beach. Tossing one back, well, it matters to that starfish. You can only help the patient in front of you."

"I know," she said. "I just... Who's working on the bigger problems? They've got to be fixed, too. I'm putting patches on the bits I can reach, and it won't matter if the whole thing collapses."

"It will matter even then," Ron assured her. "Someone's got to build the replacement after." He kept his eyes on the road and didn't say anything else until they hit the first security check.

**Author's Note:**

> It's not my intention to write any of the therapy sessions. Some of that is that it's not my forte, and some of it is that I'm not sure that Warren can be rehabilitated under these circumstances or what that process would look like if it is possible. 
> 
> Ron and Lydia will try because that's what good people do; they just may not be able to do much because they don't have the experience or the resources to make it work and because Warren's psyche is pretty thoroughly fractured. His mother could alter his interface with reality, and she did it casually and repeatedly. Warren needs some certainty that his mother is dead before he'll be able to even try to put himself back together. I'm not sure that he'll believe it's true without a lot of evidence and reinforcement.


End file.
